Dell Computer

Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computer, famously performed an experiment on an old Apple Computer when he was just 15 years old. He took his Apple apart and rebuilt it piece by piece just to test his technical abilities. Several years later, while at the University of Texas at Austin, Dell's genius for creating hardware paid off, and he opened a unique company called PCs Ltd.

Dell's idea was to sell customized IBM computers built from official parts but made to order. Dell, of course, was not the first person to think of this customization model. However, PCs Ltd. survived its competitors, and eventually produced its first Dell computer, called the Turbo PC. This 1985 model ran at a speed of 8.0 MHz and featured an Intel 8088 processor--not very impressive by today's much faster standards.

Thanks to PC Ltd.'s success, Dell was able to drop out of school and pursue computing round-the-clock. He grossed over $6.0 million in his first year of business and changed his corporation's name to "Dell Computing Corp." in 1988. Dell briefly engaged the industrial market in the early 1990s but backed away and returned to direct consumer sales.

In 1992--only seven years after the Dell computer company opened its doors--Dell was included in Fortune Magazine's 500 biggest corporations in the world. During the mid-1990s, Dell jockeyed with Compaq and Hewlett-Packard to become the No. 1 PC seller in the United States. Starting in 2003, Dell began to diversify and offer handheld units, digital jukeboxes, televisions, and the like. More recently, Dell has proven itself on the international markets, thanks in large part to the company's reputation for service.